Â鶹´«Ã½

Procurement Services

Update on the restructure of Â鶹´«Ã½ Procurement

October 17, 2019
by John Hebard, director of procurement and contract services

With the retirement of Â鶹´«Ã½A’s director of procurement services, Mary Beth Schenk, on Oct. 11, the consolidation of procurement functions into a single reporting structure is now complete. With this restructuring there is now a single department with 12 employees located in both Fairbanks and Anchorage. This staff will manage all procurements across the system larger than $25,000 as well as all other procurements that cannot be made using a procurement card or performed by distributed procurement staff. The combined staff is already working together to align processes wherever it makes sense and, most importantly, to seek economies of scale and cost savings, by establishing contracts that benefit all rather than a single campus.

While staff in Fairbanks and Anchorage have begun to work together in order to share expertise and seek savings opportunities, I have decided that it will best serve our users in the near term to have the contracting officers in Anchorage continue to serve Â鶹´«Ã½A and the contracting officers in Fairbanks continue to serve Â鶹´«Ã½F and SW. Therefore, if you have questions or concerns regarding specific procurements, please work with the contracting officer in your location that is currently providing your service. Also, departments are asked to continue to enter requisitions and provide backup documentation to the same campus procurement location that has served them previously. For staff at Â鶹´«Ã½S, procurement routing and processes will also remain the same as previous. If any of this changes moving forward, we will communicate it out to the campus communities with advance notice.

The procurement card administration staff in Fairbanks and Anchorage have also begun to work together to consolidate processes and provide backup support. We will extend similar support to Â鶹´«Ã½S in the near future. For the time being please work with your current campus card administrators for services related to the issuance, administration and audit of procurement cards and travel cards.

As stated in previous communications, all active delegations of procurement authority remain in place unless modified or revoked by the CPO. This includes procurement technicians and distributed staff with delegated procurement authority. If you have questions regarding consolidation or concerns regarding your quality of service please contact me at jahebard@alaska.edu.  Thank you for your support.

Procurement Integration Announced

Communication Regarding Procurement Integration - August 29, 2019

Effective September 1, Procurement and Contract Services (PCS) will be integrated across the university system and report to Statewide. The new structure will provide cost savings and efficiencies for the university. PCS will continue to have professionals located in Anchorage and Fairbanks to serve the mission of the university. Initially, there are no changes to procurement routing or processing for Â鶹´«Ã½F, Â鶹´«Ã½A or Â鶹´«Ã½S, so please carry on business as usual. As changes to processes are made, they will be communicated.

Steering committee members
Beverly Shuford, VC Administrative Services, Â鶹´«Ã½A
Julie Queen, VC Administrative Services, Â鶹´«Ã½F
Michael Ciri, VC Administrative Services, Â鶹´«Ã½S
Myron Dosch, Chief Finance Officer, SW
John Hebard, Procurement & Contract Services, Â鶹´«Ã½F
Vickie Gilligan, Director of Financial Systems, SW

Additional participants to be added as needed

Meetings
Stakeholder meetings TBD